23 & me test - still worth it?

[Stavia]

Brilliant Chris. Glad you have a functional medicine doc because frankly mainstream medicine (that I am a part of) is seriously on the back foot regards to all this.
Of course you are ahead of the game being under 50 still.
Please ask away stuff your doc might not be up to date with and we will try and help if we can.

[Gilgamesh]

I just tried using the free version - on the XP side (in Virtual Box) of my Mac, unsuccessfully. The XP connects to the net through the Mac & I know that works, maybe I should try it on a pure Windows machine.

George, darn. I know the Windows desktop version works fine on all versions of (pure) Windows I've tried it on (7 and 10), so if you have a pure Windows machine lying around, that should work.

[hill dweller]

Hi Chris,

I respectfully disagree with Stavia, but then I am the type that has always wanted as much info as possible, good or bad, to navigate my way through life.

For example:

Research related to risk for age-related macular degeneration (ARMD) risk (at more than one SNP) is included in the Promethease report. If you have this knowledge, you can supplement rather easily to mitigate the risk: http://www.aao.org/eye-health/diseases/amd-treatment

Other examples include risks for cancers (breast, prostate, colon, melanoma) and (sometimes) the probability that those cancers could be more or less receptive to various forms of treatment. Ditto exfoliation granular glaucoma. While you may not be able to totally mitigate these risks, healthy dietary/lifestyle choices should be a big step forward, and screenings can allow early medical intervention.

On a lighter note, you will certainly want to know whether your hair is curly or straight, your propensity for baldness, and the wetness of your ear wax.

In the past, 23andme offered a sale on National DNA Day, April 25th. Don't know if they still do this or not. You might wait and watch.

[cdamaden]

Thank you, good points. My take-away from Stavia is that you want to pace yourself in absorbing your DNA information. I prefer the pull versus push approach for data gathering in this area. It can be overwhelming, especially with results that can have a significant impact on your life. (Funny, dry ear canals with flaky earwax is an annoyance of mine!)
I do appreciate the sales info but I have already ordered the test.

Regards,

[Gilgamesh]

I know the Windows desktop version works fine on all versions of (pure) Windows I've tried it on (7 and 10), so if you have a pure Windows machine lying around, that should work.

Whoops.... I just tried the latest desktop version on my Windows 10 machine, and it failed. Tried the previous version, and it failed too, with a warning: ~"Sorry. This version is old."

I've emailed the SNPedia folk.

And there might be useful info here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/SNPedia/

G

[Stavia]

Chris, exactly, you understand that I feel you have enough to get your head around already. But also I prefer people to go into the process of getting information knowing in advance what each snp is about, what strategies might be available etc. Rather than a massive unpaced overwhelming Pandora's box info dump.
For instance, what about a person aged 35 finding out they have Huntingdons unsupported and uncounselled?

Hill - absolutely - conditions that have an effective intervention I agree it's good to know. But I feel each person should carefully chose if they want to search for a specific snp or not after carefully considering the implications of knowing that snp.

Here an example is prostate cancer. Its a can of worms. Current treatment is fraught with adverse effects, and absolute mortality reduction is very low (saves one life for every thousand men screened for 10 years - absolute mortality reduction goes from 5 deaths in the cohort to 4 deaths) whilst leaving at least 100 men impotent and incontinent. So knowing one is at higher risk is not necessarily a good thing.

This is a deep philosophical question, now that we have the technology (and Crispr). Brings up issues of autonomy, determinism and many more questions than there are answers.
Excellent discussion team. Sorry to hijack your thread Chris.

[Nords]

Thank you, good points. My take-away from Stavia is that you want to pace yourself in absorbing your DNA information. I prefer the pull versus push approach for data gathering in this area. It can be overwhelming, especially with results that can have a significant impact on your life.

Aloha, Chris, from another submariner. Nice dolphins avatar.

I realize you've already made the decision, but here's one more opinion for those on the fence.

Regardless of why our family had our genomes tested, we were all quite surprised to learn that I'm a carrier for cystic fibrosis. And, of course, our daughter is too. My spouse and I sure would've liked to have known my genetic profile before we started a family. A few months later I ran across an article about a distant cousin with CF who had a double-lung transplant at the age of 19-- same age as our daughter.

And now our daughter's fiancé is having his genetic profile analyzed too. Among their fellow Millennials, it's regarded as just one more prudent idea.

[circular]

cdamaden I'm 3/4 but got the info unexpectedly the same way you did (as did some others here), but through an internist. I gave him gentle but clear hell for not getting my permission to run that, and then called the company and gave them hell too. Told both all about the risks to obtaining certain forms of insurance coverage once it's in the medical record (e.g. life, long-term care …), which is on top of the personal effects, but they don't care. It's money to them. Patients should have to sign off for them to test apoe genetic status. Maybe this group should take some formal action to stop this trend among doctors and labs.

End rant

[Tincup]

I know the Windows desktop version works fine on all versions of (pure) Windows I've tried it on (7 and 10), so if you have a pure Windows machine lying around, that should work.

Whoops.... I just tried the latest desktop version on my Windows 10 machine, and it failed. Tried the previous version, and it failed too, with a warning: ~"Sorry. This version is old."

I've emailed the SNPedia folk.

And there might be useful info here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/SNPedia/

G

Thanks G!

{edit} I redownloaded the exe file from https://www.snpedia.com/index.php/Promethease/Desktop. For whatever reason, it appears to be working. It had the same file size as the first .exe.

[Tincup]

I take a lot of the genetic info with a grain of salt. The ApoE status is different. For example, I've had afib for 12 years. In my genonme, I've got 10 "good" SNPs, 3 "bad" and 13 "unknown." The first one reported says "Lowest risk (13% of white women) of Atrial Fibrillation " Well, I'm white, but not a woman...

My path to afib was chronic fitness. My two adult children are both very fit. They've had a 23andMe test run. I've tried to compare my afib set to theirs to see if I can figure out their risk. I can't. There is one SNP that "might" be the one that controls it for me, "atrial fibrillation rs13376333 in KCNN3, with an odds ratio (OR) of 1.5 per copy of rs13376333(T); CI: 1.40–1.64, p = 1.83 × 10e-21" (I've got one T) One kid has it one doesn't...